Monday, January 28, 2008

Mon. 1/28: Robin roost @ Woodcock Trail, Short-ear @ Reed's Beach

I took a stroll around Woodcock Trail, a tract of Cape May NWR, this evening. If you've never been (and you really should), Woodcock Trail is yet another birding locale situated off of Route 47, at the end of Woodcock Lane, a little south of Kimble's Beach Road and the Pantry One food-mart at the corner of Hand Ave & Rte 47. It has a great 1-mile walking loop that borders a fine wooded edge, and also features several paths that cut through transitional and upland-type forests, with a vista of the salt marsh available. It's a great location at any season, and features a lot of wintering passerines in winter, large numbers of migrants in spring and fall, and a good diversity of breeding birds in summer, including Blue Grosbeak, Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

There weren't tons of birds this evening, but still a nice mix of woodland edge species. Of particular note was the influx of robins into the area starting around 4:45pm. I estimated about 850 Robins coming in to roost, but am sure I missed quite a few, and didn't stay through dusk to see if more continued to file in.

A brief stop at the north end of Reed's Beach just after sunset produced one rather distant Short-eared Owl. I'd include more but our blog provider is issuing a "scheduled outage" (whatever that means) in moments, so that's all for now!

Weather looks pretty good overall for the week, get out there and see some birds!

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